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Thursday, October 23, 2014

Thursday Flash Fiction: The Horror of Spam

Yeah, I know. "Flash Fiction Thursday" doesn't alliterate like it does on Friday. But I do like to post to Chuck Wendig's challenges on Thursday, before everyone has lost interest.

This week's challenge was to write a bit of horror framed as a spam email. I didn't go very horrific, of course. In fact, at first I thought I couldn't do this at all. But while I was out biking on Sunday it occurred to me that one kind of scam/spam was perfectly suited to a Halloween theme, if not real horror: the grandchild in need. Chuck suggested limiting this one to under 500 words; mine is only 367 including the title. I regret that I cannot reproduce the machine-translated English of most spam (well, no, I don't regret it at all. But you know. I had to say it).

The Horror of Spam, the Spam of Horror

To: GrandmaSubject: Need help!

Dear Grandma,I am in such trouble and I need your help. I was on our school trip to Romania and we were staying in this really cool castle in Transylvania. So I totally fell in love with our host, this guy Vladimir who lives in the castle. He is sooooo cute! And he says he loves me too, but he’s pretty desperate so I don’t know.

See, now he’s saying that he wants to keep me forever, and that I need to give him money. I mean, I know that castles like his cost a lot to run, and that’s why he rents it out to tourists and sleeps in the basement. Well, in the crypt, really, but it’s totally nice and dry and all, and he says he doesn’t mind a few dead ancestors. Real aristocrats are so much more matter-of-fact about that stuff, aren’t they?

But if I don’t come up with the money, he says—well, I never noticed his teeth, because you know, guys with those smoky sultry good looks don't grin or anything. He’s making me kind of nervous, I mean this is Transylvania after all. And I don’t think I want to be his bride, even if he is a Count, and for sure I don’t want to let him bite me on the neck. But that’s the thing: he says if you don’t send money, I can either join him in his crypt or he’ll give me to his friend Wolfgang. The one Vlad calls “Vulfie” with a raised eyebrow, just to make sure I know what sort he is.

I’m afraid I kind of boasted about how rich we are, when I was first getting to know Vlad. I mean, he’s a Count, you know? I didn’t want him to think I’m from some ordinary family. So he wants like, a million dollars? Please, scrape up whatever you can and wire it to me at 1600 Transylvania Avenue, Transylvania, Romania, unless you want your favorite granddaughter turned into a vampire. Or eaten by a werewolf.